"This is a great little romantic tale, but it's late so let's just get to it," Black Eyes says.
He grabs one arm and pulls me forward. I fall onto my knees when one of my heels breaks off, my purse falling along with my pepper spray and phone.
"Please don't," I say softly.
"I think I'm going to like your begging," Black Eyes tells me.
I close my eyes. No. Nonononononono. No!
I fight. He's too strong. Before long he's lifting my dress and ripping my panties off while holding me down with his weight.
I beg. He laughs. Scary Chick laughs.
I know what's going to happen and it's going to be brutal.
I fight. He hits me.
I fight some more and he punches my face.
I fight harder, trying to kick my legs, trying to punch him. I manage to claw his face when he tries to subdue me. He lifts my head then slams it onto the asphalt. He does it again. I'm seeing stars. I can't breathe as my panic attack escalates into a place I've never been.
I struggle for breath. As I do, I feel myself drifting.
I fight again. Scary Chick kicks me in the side—again and again and again.
I don't stop fighting and Black Eyes punches me in the stomach, then the face again. I can't see out of my right eye and the swelling on the left is catching up quickly.
"Please, don't," I beg.
They laugh. They taunt and encourage him.
I can't breathe. I slip into a place of quiet so I don't have to feel it as he violates me. It hurts. Oh, God. I start to cry, then turn my head away from him. I want to vomit. He's purposefully hurting me, laughing.
That laugh.
All of them.
Laughing.
Laughing.
Laughing.
I allow myself to drift off and become numb. This is a place I've never been before, one I thought I'd end up having to go to when my dead mother's drug dealers tried to touch me. I escaped that, but I can't escape this.
Black Eyes slaps me across the face. I don't feel it. I feel nothing.
He doesn't like that so he slams my head against the asphalt again. The blood had been trickling before, but now I can feel it flowing faster and it's starting to pool under my neck.
He flips me over.
"No!" I scream. I scream and scream and scream until I can't breathe. He slams my face down onto the ground at the same time as Scary Chick kicks me again, stomping on my hand and my arm with her booted feet. The pain is so debilitating I can't even feel anything anymore.
Someone starts on the other hand and arm. Nothing.
I am nothing.
I am gone.
I have no body.
I'm not there.
I'm gone.
Black Eyes rages. He wants me to fight. Why? It does no good. I don't even acknowledge him. He slams my face onto the ground twice in rapid succession and I see the darkness at the edges of my vision.
It's closing in.
I'm almost completely gone.
One more kick.
I am no longer me.
Punches to my back, my arms, my face, my legs—everywhere.
I will never be me again.
Chapter Eighteen
My phone wakes me up. Linc's phone is ringing. Jesse's phone is ringing.
Something bad has happened.
I sit on the private plane in silence. No one is saying a word. We're all too fucking scared out of our minds.
Dad called. "Tera's in surgery." A red haze is circling my vision. "She's been assaulted, Xan." I struggle to breathe and fist my hands on the arm rests. "It's bad. Really bad." I pound my fists on the arm rests twice, then press my fists to my eyes.
"Motherfucker!" I shout. I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm fucking devastated for her. "I should have fucking been there!"
"Xan," Ben says.
"No. Don't. You know this isn't right. This isn't right." Tears well in my eyes and I just let them fall. "She's our family. She's my wife. I should have been there to protect her. I don't give a fuck about Good Morning America or the fucking Today show. All I care about is her. How is she ever going to be able to forgive me? How will I be able to forgive myself?" I pause, then my breath hitches. "What if she doesn't make it? Oh, God, what if she doesn't make it."
"Breathe, Xan," Jesse coaxes, handing me paper bag. Apparently I'm hyperventilating as I sob out my grief. The anger will come later. It's simmering right now. I'll keep it there until the time is right.
"Fuck! I need to get this out now before I get there. She's going to need me to be strong. For her, I have to be strong. Linc," I call out. He looks at me, his face white and devoid of emotion. "She's going to need us to be strong for her. Like she's always been for us."
He nods once then turns to face forward again. Ethan's sitting next to him, murmuring softly.
Ben's stiff as a board in his seat. Kennedy's slumped forward, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands.
I look to Jesse sitting next to me. "I'm going to kill someone."
He nods. "I'm there with you, brother."
"We all are," Ben tells me.
I look over to him across the aisle and nod.
Someone's going to pay what they did to her.
I hit the hospital doors at a run. The elevator is slow as fuck.
"Fourth floor," Jesse reminds me.
I nod. Like I'd forget. Fourth floor, room 406, third door on the right.
The elevator doors open and my dad is standing there waiting. I look at him, searching for something good, but it's all bad. He looks bleak, distraught, worried. He's been crying.
I rush forward and hug him. "Dad."
He crushes me to him, holding me so tight. "She's still in surgery. It's been four hours, Xander. Four hours," he whispers.
I nod. Even I know that's not good. "She'll make it. She has to."
Dad lets go and wipes tears from his cheeks. He walks over to Linc and hugs him just as tightly has he hugged me. Fuck. This is so fucking bad and I'm helpless. There's absolutely nothing I can do to help fix this, fix her. Nothing.
"Why are we on the fourth floor if she's still in surgery?" Jesse asks.
Dad sighs. "Rosa needed to be sedated." He pauses and no one even asks why. Dad just needs a minute. We can see it as he swallows—hard. "When we got here, Jose was immediately pulled to the desk to fill out paperwork. We were trying to find out what was going on. They wouldn't let us back to see her, but the door to the ER opened and we caught a glimpse just as Tera was being wheeled to surgery." He pauses again, looking down at the worn carpet beneath our feet. My stomach is tied up in knots, dread fills my chest, and I'm about to lose my shit. Dad looks up. His expression. It guts me further. It's filled with despair, fear, and panic. "There was so much blood. So much blood everywhere."
"Jesus," Linc whispers, a tear falling from his eye. This closed off, tough, hardened guy who tries so hard to not feel anything, is feeling so much he doesn't even realize he's crying.
Dad nods.
"How… who found her?" Ethan asks, his voice shaky.
"She must have just hit whatever button she could on her phone because she called Carter." Dad looks at me.
"Oh fuck. No. Tell me he didn't have to listen…" I trail off, fear seeping into every one of my pores. "He loves her. Loves her. Loves her like I love her."
Dad nods. "He, uh, at first he thought she butt dialed him because she was talking. He was curious so he listened. She put up a good front, but Carter could hear how scared she was. He woke his dad. It was after three in the morning. They started recording the call and Mr. Winters called 911. They knew where she'd been but not where she was. Then someone brought up art. They told the 911 operator about the gallery."
He looks down again, head hanging, hands on his hips, his lips pressed together. When he looks up, I know.
"Fuck," I growl. "He heard it all."
Dad nods.
"Jesus. Is he okay?" Jesse asks.
"N
o. He's not. He's getting on the first available flight here. He wants to turn over the recording to the police," Dad explains.
I nod. I'd want to be here too if I were him. Whether she's married or not, he fucking loves her as much as I do. I won't fault him for coming.
"I'm going to hug that fucker when he gets here," Ben announces.
I nod. "This is going to take a long time for him to get past."
"Yeah," Dad agrees.
"Were…" Linc begins then clears his throat. "Were there any surveillance cameras or anything? Did anyone see anything?"
"Yes. The gallery has two cameras at the back of the building. The tapes have been given to the police. Detective Jennings is handling the case. He's reviewing it as we speak," Dad tells us. "Let's go check on Rosa."
We follow behind, every one of us fearing the worst.
"Mr. Martinez. Has Mr. Mackenzie arrived?" a doctor asks from the doorway.
"That's me," I say frantically, standing and striding to him quickly. "How is she? Is she going to be okay?"
The doctor doesn't smile. Why would he? There's nothing to smile about here.
"Mr. Mackenzie. I'm Dr. Levine the Neurologist who operated on your wife."
We shake hands. "Call me Xander."
"All right. Xander, Tera was brought in with extensive injuries and she'd lost a lot of blood," he begins.
Oh, God.
Linc stands beside me, as tense as I am.
"Is she alive? Jesus, is my wife alive?" I implore, ready to drop to my knees.
He nods. "She is, but she's in critical condition. I'm not going to sugar coat it for you. It's touch and go right now. The injuries she sustained were some of the worst I have ever seen."
"What injuries? Tell us all of it," Linc demands.
"He's her brother. Give it to us straight, doc. We want to know everything."
He looks me straight in the eyes. "When Tera was brought in, she was barely hanging on. She coded but we were able to bring her back. She sustained a fracture to her skull which is the most critical of injuries because when she did, we can only assume they hit her head onto the concrete which caused her brain to do this," he explains, showing us with his hands. "When forcefully pushed forward, your brain doesn't automatically move with the body so it shifts backward as you would if you were in a car and someone hit the gas hard. And the opposite if they hit the brakes hard. The back and forward motion caused the brain to swell and there's an area that was also bleeding. We created what we call a skull flap."
My dad jerks upright, running his hands through his hair and pulling on it.
"We remove a piece of the skull in order to give the brain more room in order to accommodate the swelling. We stopped the bleeding but we don't know if she'll have more bleeding. We just don't know what to expect at this point."
"Jesus," Linc mutters.
"What about the rest?" I ask, wanting to know yet wanting to just run and hide. Is this really happening?"
"We had six doctors operating on her at the same time. Me, for neurology. An orthopedic surgeon, a plastic surgeon, a general surgeon, a gynecologist," his eyes flick over to Linc then back to me, "and a proctologist."
"No," I whisper. I shake my head. "No. Dear God, no!" I bend over at the waist, the pain lancing through me knowing now that my girl, my wife, my love, has been brutalized in the worst possible ways.
Dad rests his hand on my back.
"The general surgeon, gynecologist, and proctologist should be coming to talk to you shortly. They were finishing up as I scrubbed out," he informs us.
"And the others? She's still in surgery? Is she strong enough for that?" Dad asks.
"The plastic surgeon is doing what he can for now to repair the damage to her face. I'm not sure the extent of all of the damages and I'm not going to speculate. I can assure you, she's in the best hands possible. Our best doctors are working hard to help Tera."
Dad rubs my back and I straighten slowly, wanting to drop to my knees and shout at the world, scream from the top of my lungs, cry and wail until I no longer can. But I do none of that. I hold strong for her.
"Ah, here we are," Dr. Levine says when three other doctors walk in. Christ. Every one of them looks so bleak and that tells us everything before they say a word.
"Thank you, Dr. Levine," I say.
"You're welcome, Xander. I'll be monitoring her in ICU when she's out of surgery as will the other surgeons. We'll take care of Tera for all of you," he says, looking at everyone in the room before making his exit.
A young doctor, maybe in his thirties holds out his hand in greeting. "I'm Dr. Morris, general surgeon."
A woman close to my dad's age introduces herself as well. "I'm Dr. Leslie, OB/GYN surgery."
And, finally, a male, also close to my dad's age holds out a hand. "Mr. Mackenzie. I'm Dr. Mitchell from Proctology. I can see you're all on edge, so I'm just going to cut to the chase."
I breathe out a sigh of relief. "Thank you."
"I'm Tera's brother," Linc says. "Give it to us straight, doc."
Dr. Mitchell nods. "All right. When Tera was brought in, I was called in to repair some tearing in and around her rectum." He dips his head so his eyes are right on Linc's this time. "It was extensive, but everything has been repaired. It's going to be a little while before she's going to be comfortable using the restroom normally, so for now we have a colostomy bag attached."
I must make a noise, because he looks at me.
"It's just for comfort. She will have completely normal function once everything is healed properly," he reassures.
I nod. Thank God.
"I'll be monitoring her until she's ready to have the bag removed," he finishes, then steps back to let Dr. Leslie step up.
"There was much of the same type of damage to Tera's vagina, internally as well as externally. Initially I was worried there would be damage deeper inside including her cervix and uterus, but fortunately that wasn't the case."
Now I do blow out a breath of relief and a lone tear falls. Then another. And another.
"That doesn't mean she won't be without reproductive issues. Once everything heals, we'll need to do some testing to see if there was deeper damage done than is visible to the eye," she tells us.
I nod, unsure how to feel about that.
"My turn," Dr. Morris says, stepping forward. "I had to remove Tera's spleen which was badly damaged and bleeding. I also repaired a laceration to her liver. She has severe bruising of her kidneys so we'll be monitoring that closely. If there are any problems, we'll bring in a nephrologist. Tera also had a punctured lung. One of the four ribs she has broken must have come in contact with the lung. It was repaired. She'll need to be on the respirator for that alone but more so for Neurology."
Dr. Levine speaks up again, "She'll be on the respirator for a while. We're going to keep her in a medically-induced coma until some of the brain swelling goes down as well as letting some of her injuries heal a bit. The damage she has now would be too much for the body and brain to be able to handle."
"Jesus," Linc mutters.
I thought Dr. Levine left earlier. Guess I was wrong.
"The bruising of Tera's organs," Dr. Morris begins, "will be watched but should heal well with time and we're talking months rather than weeks. The repeated blows were traumatic. It's my hope she heals well and comes out of this without any permanent damage but, again, that will have to be monitored long-term to know for sure."
Dad steps forward. "Dr. Levine mentioned a plastic surgeon and orthopedic surgeon. What types of injuries are we dealing with there?"
Dr. Leslie answers. "I don't know the extent of her injuries, but I do know her face was repeatedly slammed into the pavement causing one of her cheek bones to shatter and the other to have damage as well—I'm not sure how much for that one. Her nose was broken. One of her eye sockets was fractured. Her jaw was broken and dislocated, so they'll be wiring her mouth closed around the ventilation tube for now, but when she's off the
vent they'll wire it the rest of the way until her jaw heals. Those are the injuries I know of. I don't know if there are more than that, and that's the plastic surgeon portion."
"I…" I trail off. "Jesus Christ. How many of them was there, Dad?"
He meets my gaze straight on. "Seven."
"No," I whisper, dropping to my knees. "God, no. How many… God, Dad, how many…?" raped her. I can't say the words aloud.
"One male and one female is what the detective told me."
I lean forward, my face buried in my bent legs.
"The other surgeons should be in soon. Then they'll be moving Tera to ICU," Dr. Levine assures us.
I don't even listen. Linc drops to his knees next to me. Then Jesse. Ben. Kennedy. Ethan, and finally Dad.
"She's strong," Ethan reminds us.
"All of that and we don't even know what bones are broken besides the ones in her face and ribs," Linc growls. "Who the fuck are these people?"
"I don't know, man, but they're going to be dead if the cops don't find them before we do," Ben says.
"Damn right," Kennedy agrees.
I lift my head from where my face was cocooned on my thighs and look at my dad.
"What can we do?"
"We're doing it," he tells me. "Maybe add in a prayer. I know we've never been very religious, but people say it helps."
"It sure can't hurt," Jesse mumbles.
I close my eyes, fold my hands as I've seen people do when they pray, and ask whatever God is up there listening for the impossible.
"They broke her fucking toes," Linc shouts. "Her fucking toes!"
In addition to the toes were lower legs, a couple fingers, and her left arm and wrist. Add in the ribs and face. The anger swirling inside me is massive. I have never been so angry, freaked out, or felt so helpless in my entire life and I pray I never feel this way again.
Mr. M comes walking out of the room, his entire body shaking.
"Jose," my dad calls out, striding toward him and wrapping an arm around him before guiding him to the sofa on the far side of the waiting room.
"Our girl, Matthew," Jose mutters brokenly.
"She'll heal," Dad replies.